Whether the lion is a feline or a canine, this question has not been questioned, everyone recognizes that the lion is a feline, and tigers, leopards and called the three major beasts of the feline family. Look up the encyclopedia introduction we can also see such an introduction: lion, animal name, scientific name Panthera leo, mammals, carnivorous order, cats.
In the classification developed by the IUCN Cat Expert Group, lions are also classified as carnivorous-cat-leopard. However, some recent studies on lions have found that lions have more habits of some canines, and genetic-related studies have also found that some lions are different from other cats, which makes lions removed from felines and classified as canines. Let's analyze it today.
Leopard lion beast
<h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" >, previously recognized as a feline, the evolutionary process has been questioned, some scientists proposed to exclude lions from the cat family and change it to canines? </h1>
Lions like dogs?
The habits of lions deviate from the characteristics of cats, and some lions prefer to live in groups, and their living habits are close to those of canines.
Lions have many characteristics similar to canines, cats mostly live alone, because of limited endurance, good at ambushing prey, catching prey is usually based on biting the throat, strong forelimb strength, and weak hindlimb strength. Lions, on the other hand, are good at socializing, and their hunting method belongs to hunting, with biting prey as the main hunting method, and the proportion of forelimb strength and flexibility in the body structure is much lower than that of other cats. From the perspective of living habits and hunting methods alone, lions are more like canines such as wolves, and their behavior is even more different from the characteristics of cats.
Lions and tigers
Other traits are closer to those of canines, such as felines, which are mostly cautious by nature, and even tigers like to hide, while lions like to show off their personalities and fight more. Felines prefer to be clean, feed on fresh prey, and rarely eat carrion, while lions can eat carrion and are accustomed to tumbling in the dirt; felines are usually bright in color and have stripes, while lions are more homogeneous in color and more similar to canines.
In addition to these similar appearances and habits to canines, there are also relevant questions in genetic research.
Genetic studies have found that the lion's chromosomes are 19 pairs, while other cats are mostly 18 pairs of color bodies, the number of canine chromosomes is 38 pairs, the number of lion color bodies is exactly half of the canines, combined with the life habits of lions, some experts have proposed that lions are the product of canine chromosome mutations, or that canines are the products of lion chromosome mutations.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" >2. Are lions cats or canines? Let's look at the case of genetics. </h1>
We all know that animals of different families cannot mate to produce offspring, lions and tigers can mate and produce children, there are lions, tigers, lions, etc., and some female offspring can continue to reproduce, further producing three generations of cubs such as lions, lions and tigers. The same lions and leopards can also produce offspring, with animals such as leopard lions being born in zoos. This further validates that lions, like tigers and leopards, are of the same family.
Another similar case is the mule, which is the product of the mating of the horse and the donkey, and the hybrid born of the male donkey and the mare is the horse mule; the hybrid born of the stallion and the female donkey is the donkey mule; but the horse and the donkey belong to different genera of the same family, so the offspring after mating between the two do not have the ability to reproduce again, that is to say, the relationship between the horse and the donkey is farther than the relationship between the lion and the tiger.
mule
Let's look at another negative case, man and ape, in a village in Indonesia, there was a orangutan pick-up incident, a local village circled a orangutan and trained it to be the object of human venting, for up to six years, was brutally treated. Similarly, in Africa is the earliest birthplace of azb, and according to the study, it was also transmitted from African apes to humans. Humans belong to the same ancestor as apes, but do not produce offspring. This further illustrates that the gap between cats such as lions and tiger leopards is so small that there is no reproductive isolation.
orang
From the above cases, it can be seen that lions are real felines, as for the difference in habits with other cats, it can be seen as the adaptability needs of the environment, in the African savannah, there is no ambush condition, and living in groups is more conducive to survival. Under certain conditions, lions can also survive alone, such as the Barbary lion in North Africa, which is a lion that lives alone and behaves in the same way as other cats.
<h1 class = "pgc-h-arrow-right" > third, mammals are derived from a common ancestor, genetic blending is a normal phenomenon, many animals of different families have image inverse strings. </h1>
Hyenas are not dogs, they are hyenas, belonging to the general order of the family Felines. Hyenas are usually considered to be canines because they are too similar to dogs, but in fact, hyenas belong to the hyena family, which is a cat suborder, belonging to the general order of the cat family, which is far from the canine family, so the appearance does not determine the attributes of the animal.
hyena
Yang's tiger is not a tiger, it is a lion. In the Zhoukoudian area of China, a fossil of a cat has been unearthed, its form is similar to a tiger, but it is a kind of lion, which is a population of European cave lions migrating to Asia, and in the environment of Asia's mountainous forests, it adapts to tiger-like living habits.
Yang's Tiger
The cougar is more like the golden cat than the lion, the cougar is also called the American golden cat, and its form is between the lion and the leopard, which verifies the claim that the lion and the leopard are both cats.
In addition to these characteristics, cats have a special ability, that is, can climb trees, lions are no exception, although the ability to climb trees is not very strong, but also climb trees, which is a difference from canines.
puma
Therefore, we can know that the lion is a kind of feline, one of the 37 species of cats in the world, they are beautiful, athletic, and loved by people, but at present, in addition to the domestic cat, the remaining 36 species of cats have been listed in the Convention on International Trade in Endangered extinct wild fauna and flora, becoming endangered or rare animals, hoping that people can protect them.